"I pay my highest tribute to all those who did not complete their journey to Melbourne"

-UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Joep Lange who started working on HIV research since 1983 was onboard MH17, along with other AIDS researchers, activists and health workers. They were on their way to the 20th AIDS conference in Melbourne which opened Sunday 20th July 2014.

A professor of medicine at the University of Amsterdam, Lange played a pivotal role behind countless antiretroviral therapy trials. If not for his work, mother-to-child transmission of HIV would still be uncontrolled. Advocating for medication to be made available to the developing nations, he was the president of the International AIDS Society from 2002 to 2004.

Among his other contribution to the treatment of HIV, he was one of the many researches who developed the HIV antigen test to measure the amount of virus in human blood. Today, the HIV ‘viral load’ test is a routine test taken by people with HIV to measure and predict disease progression as well as response to treatment.

Contributor’s note:Thank you Professor Lange for the work you had selflessly put into HIV research. I would not have been alive today to be with my partner, friends and family and to fulfill my dreams. You have transformed the lives of millions whom you did not know and we cannot thank you enough. Justice must be served for all 298 souls that perished.